Rape, politics and populism

It is fair to say that nobody is going to feel much sympathy for the poor rapists, whom the Tories targeted in yesterday’s announcement. They plan a review of sentencing – “review” being political code for “lengthening”.

There may very well be grounds for a review. If Theresa May is correct, sentences have been falling over the past three years; if this is due to changes in, or poor application of, the law then a review is warranted. Similarly, if Mr. Cameron is correct that “as many as one in two young men believe there are some circumstances when it's okay to force a woman to have sex” then there is an urgent need to tackle the causes.

I have two reasons for feeling uncomfortable, however.

The fist reason for concern is that being tough on criminals is to politics what a steep gully is to water; it is the path of least resistance. Few people have any sympathy for criminals, and rapists in particular engender very strong feelings of anger among large numbers of people. It is thus all-too-easy to achieve what political analysts call “valancy”, a sense among people that a politician thinks like they do, by taking a tough line on crime.

We have seen the upshot of this after ten years of Blairism (which if it exists as a philosophy at all is the belief that the primary goal is to remain in power, from which good must eventually follow). On average a new crime was created every day during the Blair years; there are 170,000 new pages of law; and our gaols are now bursting at the seems because of longer minimum sentences. Yet there is no evidence that we feel safer.

Which brings me on to my second reason for hesitancy: that one cannot change attitudes through legislation. I agree with Mr. Cameron that it is appalling (and indeed shocking) that up to half of young men think that a circumstance could exist where it would be acceptable to force somebody to have sex. However, I think the point is both a wider and an older one; that there are still many people in society who think that it is acceptable to use force to compel others to do anything. Rape is a particularly unpleasant example, but there are plenty of other instances where people are forced or bullied into obeying others. It is this general attitude that we should be addressing; rape is merely one symptom of a more prevalent disease.

Yet, as I have argued before, the law is not the solution (though we must in the meantime criminalise such behaviour so as to protect citizens both through incarcerating the abusers and deterring those who might abuse). People do not change their attitudes because something becomes illegal; indeed, legislation is only necessary because people have not been persuaded. What is necessary is to address the root causes – the beliefs of those who believe that force is justified in getting what they want. Unsurprisingly, the coercive power of the state will not achieve that goal.

So while I agree with Mr. Cameron that school is a perfect environment to address these attitudes, I would hope that our education establishments would go beyond focusing on sex education, and instead address the whole issue of freedom from compulsion, to instil in our children an understanding of why it is wrong to force people to do things against their will.

In the meantime, by all means address low conviction rates or inadequate sentences that result from failures in the system. But do not make political capital out of seeking to be seen to be “tough on crime”. Toughness may win the brief adulation of voters, but in the long run what they want is to be safe and secure. That would be popular without being populist.

"Together We Can Cut Crime": rejecting the policy paper

In four days time the Liberal Democrat federal conference will have the opportunity to debate and vote upon the law and order policy paper, Together We Can Cut Crime. This is a worthy attempt to tackle the perception of rising lawlessness in our society and to genuinely bring down rates of criminality and especially re-offending. Sadly, in the process it brushes aside too many of our fundamental principles and seeks centralising and patronising solutions. It needs amending. Failing that, it needs rejecting.

To be fair, the paper really isn’t that bad. It tries hard, and many of its suggestions are really rather good. So I will dwell first on these strong points. Section 3, on crime prevention, is really quite good: a review of ASBOs and a focus on establishing responsible behaviour contracts before behaviour deteriorates are long overdue – it is almost forgotten now that the police were originally set up to prevent crime, rather than catch offenders. Addressing repeat victimisation is sensible, as is boosting the capacity of police to recognise and deal with metal health issues and the proposal to appoint dedicated youth officers in each ward.

Similarly, section 4 on punishment, reform and rehabilitation is excellent. For too long the prison system has been viewed as a means of punishing offenders and protecting society rather than reforming characters and enabling criminals to lead constructive, law-abiding lives. Prisoners are the ultimate captive audience: they can be obliged to attend lessons to teach them literacy (only one in five can cope with an application form, according to section 4.2.10), numeracy and perhaps a trade.

But other parts of the paper are less strong, falling as policy papers all-too-often do into the traps of all governments-in-waiting: centralism and micromanagement.

Take, for example, section 2.1.4: “Licensing regimes should also be used to ensure responsible behaviour… We propose: Requiring local authorities [to] have regard to ensuring an appropriate ratio of seated to standing areas in all pubs, bars and clubs…” An ironic twist for a party that is promising a Great Repeal Act, a bonfire of the regulatory vanities. The same is true of the previous clause, to extend the House in Multiple Occupancy licensing regime to include minimum security standards. There may be evidence to suggest that these will reduce crime, but it is rather incongruous that these two proposals immediately follow the statement (2.1.2) that “We are reluctant to over-regulate, especially where stipulating design standards…”

Sadly, over-regulating is exactly what this is about. Local authorities are to be given the powers to tell publicans, private clubs and landlords how much floor-space must be set aside for seating and what types of locks must be used. Never mind that publicans are serving the publics desires, or for that matter that the amount of revenue they generate per square foot of floor-space depends on a goodly proportion of their customers standing. Their profitability, like that of so many small businesses, is to be sacrificed on the alter of the regulator. “Licence holders and their staff need to take the lead in promoting a responsible attitude to drinking…” says 2.3.4, but they are not to be trusted to do so without regulation.

Similarly, the ability of tenants to consider for themselves whether they wish to pay extra for heightened security features, or would like to go to a busy, lively venue where there is standing room only (or for that matter, dancing-room only) is not to be trusted; these poor fools don’t know what’s good for them!

If individuals are not to be trusted to make their own decisions, neither are local authorities. Councils are to be “required to have a designated website to allow local residents to express their concerns and review… progress” (2.1.7). This is not a decision to be taken by local councillors; neither are local electors free to choose whether this is a better use of council resources than care for the elderly or better recycling or even (heavens!) other crime-prevention initiatives. Government knows best. The decision to base PCSOs in schools (3.1.2) sounds like a good idea, but should this not be the decision of local authorities and local police boards, responding to particular needs, rather than a central government diktat that assumes that every area suffers youth crime?

Then there is the target setting. One of the greatest problems with the Labour Government has been its obsession with setting targets that reflect the views of bureaucrats rather than the needs of deliverers; that deflect service providers from responding to the needs of their patients or pupils or the citizens they serve. “Setting and average of 90 days between arrest and trial” (5.1.5) and dictating call centre response rates (2.4.7) is no different from the Blair/Brown target setting we have suffered for a decade: maximum waits become uniform waits, and attention to other, perhaps more urgent problems is subsumed by the desire to tick the Whitehall boxes. The faith in the national plan and the wisdom of departmental officials flies in the face of our commitment (in both policy papers and, more importantly, in our ideological foundations) to trust individuals, local providers and county and municipal authorities to make decisions in their own interests and that of their local area.

Finally, and most egregiously, there is the section on the victims’ compensation fund. Section 5.4.4 states that “Liberal Democrats sign up to the principle that victims of crime should be entitled to some compensation whether this is obtained from the perpetrator… or… is paid by the state…” This is absolute nonsense. While there is a compelling case for requiring offenders to make reparations to their victims (both as compensation and as a means of demonstrating to them the personal harm they caused their victim), there is absolutely no reason why the state should act as an insurer-of-last-resort, soothing with money the pain meted out by criminals.
Compensation is not a liberal principle. It is the offspring of a paternalism that believes that the state should be a shoulder to cry upon and a nurse-maid to provide a sticking-plaster for the poor, crying child that is the citizen. Of course we feel compassion for the victim; we would be heartless if we did not. But the victim’s financial losses should be met by offenders and private insurers. The state’s efforts should be devoted solely to ensuring that crime is prevented and criminals brought to justice. If there is a spare pound, it should be spent on the two, primary purposes of Government: to provide a stable legal framework in which we can all live peacefully, and to protect the citizen from harm. It is not to act as nanny.

This paper, in current form, is not worthy of being adopted by a liberal political party. It ignores the principles that the party has set out in other policy papers and the philosophical basis of our beliefs: that the individual must be free of meddling officialdom; that decisions are best taken at the most localised level, nearest the citizen; and that the state exists to protect, not to mother, the individual.

Together We Can Cut Crime is not a disappointment because it is entirely wrong. Worse than that, it is a disappointment because much of it is right. But it is marred by illiberal micro-management and patronising paternalism. It desperately needs to be revised. Until then, it must be rejected.

Privatised policing

Villagers in Dedham, Essex, are so fed up with vandalism and anti-social behaviour that they have decided to pay for their own policing.

At a cost of £15 per year per household (which the County Council adds to the precept, the Parish Council’s discretionary taxation appended to the Council Tax), the Parish Council will fund a Police Community Support Officer dedicated to the village.

Dedham is a picturesque Essex village

The privatisation of policing tends to cause a visceral fear in most liberals. The state’s monopoly on coercion and violence are rightly viewed as essential safeguards against the brutal anarchy that would ensue if private armies were allowed to proliferate. Yet on the other hand, hiring a bodyguard or security guard is only a natural extension of the individual’s right to self-defence.

This example is actually a half-way house, with the PCSO remaining an officer of the state, but financed and thus deployed by the local community. This is closer to Britain’s policing heritage than our current system; over the past 30 years successive Home Secretaries have extended centralised control over what were a plethora of local police services, developed from local watch committees. This centralisation has not been entirely positive.

Dedham is famous for Constable

Local policing needs to be rooted much more firmly in the community than is currently the case: at present there are Safer Neighbourhoods panels, and local commanders meet with councillors, but we have a far more centralised approach to policing than is common in Europe or America. Rather than having a local constabulary and a national gendarmerie, our police fall between two stools. As a result, they have lost that greatest of all British traditions, the local bobby on the beat who knew his local area, chatted to the residents and deterred crime. The new Safer Neighbourhoods initiative is an attempt to return to community policing, but local elected officials should be given much more control over local policing than is currently the case.

This particular story does raise an issue of equality, however. While I can see no reason why a community should not be allowed to volunteer to pay for extra security, and while it may make sense for that security to be an officer of the state, I am concerned by the report on today’s Times (a column inch of which explains my unerring knowledge of the workings of Dedham Parish Council) that the Parish will only pay half of the costs of the PCSO, with Essex County Council or Essex police presumably picking up the rest of the bill. This raises the spectre of public resources being allocated to where communities are rich enough to bear part of the costs, but are unwilling to bear all. This is in effect a subsidy to the wealthier sectors of society, who can afford to vote for a £15 a year rise in their Council Tax, diverting resources away from poorer areas where money is tighter. What is more, it allocates resources based not on need, but on ability to pay: as Dedham Councillor Lyn West noted, ‘the village would [not] get "value for money" in view of the low level of crime in Dedham’.

There is clearly a middle ground in this issue, whereby communities would have more control over policing and would be able to buy in more if they chose, while poor areas did not subsidise the security of richer neighbours. This is to give more power over policing to local communities, allow them to vote for the amount of investment in policing to be derived from their own taxes, but not subsidise additional local policing from taxes from the wider community. Let the people of the county pay for the policing of county, which is distributed according to priorities set out by the County Council, while local parishes or wards control their own budgets, which they can augment as they see fit from their own resources. This would strengthen the link between the taxpayer and the public service, and ensure that county-wide resources were allocated according to need, and not ability to pay.

These days it's a different type that is getting them excited.